(Ir)religiosity

One of the unfortunate side effects of so-called “new” atheism (besides general intransigent arrogance and a lack of intellectual honesty) has been further (false) dichotomization of science and religion and rigid entrenchment into the reductionistic foxholes of scientism and religious fundamentalism.  Positivistic intellectuals like ‘Ditchkins’ and your run-of-the-mill, garden-variety Christianists like, say, Ken Ham or Carl Wieland are ready to hedge their bets on the misguided and myopic supposition that the discourses of science and religion fundamentally and foundationally incompatible.  The irony in all this is that both camps are both partially correct yet completely wrong in asserting complete epistemological superiority.  The similarities of the new atheists and religious fundamentalists has been well documented.  I don’t want to rehash that position except to take note of the core assertion:  that when it comes to matters of exclusivity, intolerance, and arrogance new atheism and religious fundamentalism more similar than they are different, functioning as mirror images of the core logic, shadow-boxers or ships passing in the night, one might say.  Which is why the vitriolic arguments are, at times, just as entertaining as they are tiresome.

This brings me to Jon Stewart’s great interview with Marilynne Robinson last night on The Daily Show promoting her new book Absence of Mind. See the video below after the jump: Read the rest of this entry »

Rather, to borrow from Oswald Chambers, prayer changes me, altering the very fabric of my being and empowering me to better participate in the divine life.  The goal is to radically restructure my life as an ongoing act of prayer, a continual outworking of my wrestling with the timeless Augustinian question “what do I love when I love my God?”, and a faithful response to the Event that lays claim to me.

That is the nucleus of the post I wrote yesterday on prayer for Open Table Theology.  It should be published sometime later this month.

In the meantime, add the feed to your reader and join the in dialogical experiment!

The inaugural theme over at Open Table Theology is over the Imago dei.  Yesterday, thanks to Matt Scott, I kicked off the conversation this month with my post “The Relational Image of God:  Embracing the Other.” I am re-posting it here and I would invite you to visit Open Table Theology and join in our dialogical experiment.

“God created humankind in God’s image,” so the old aphorism goes, “and we returned the favor.”  No doubt it is true.  Appeals to God and God’s nature have been made to justify some of the most horrific atrocities and some of the most beautiful miracles.  “God” becomes the ultimate judo move, the Ace in the hole, the secret weapon that can be used to appeal to the better and worse angels of our finite human nature.  When you stop and think about it our view of God and God’s nature  and our ideas who or what God is have implications for everything.  Literally.  Everything.  Not to mention the Imago dei.  What does it mean to be created in the image of God?

We could phrase it in different way and ask the same question St. Augustine posed so long ago in his Confessions:  what is it that we love when we love our God?  Who is it that we love when we love our God?

Whatever our answer I think most of us will agree that whatever this image entails, it is common among all human beings.  That is to say, we are all created in God’s image. All.  The terrorist and the freedom fighter, the American and the Arab, the Muslim and the Christian, the homosexual and the heterosexual, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, progressive and evangelical — all share this common thread.  We all have something within us, call it a divine spark or our common humanity, we all share this essence, this characteristic, this divine stamp upon our being.  It is inescapable.

Torturing the Divine Image?

This raises some interesting questions.  A little over a month ago a Pew Poll revealed that most churchgoers — 54% to be exact — believe that torture can sometimes be justified.  Torture.  Torture?  Towards another human being created in the image of God?  What does that say about our view of God and God’s children?  A few days prior to reading the Pew Poll I stumbled across one of those “new” bibles that are all the rage these days.  This one was called The American Patriot’s Bible and it claimed to convey the ways in which “the story of the United States is wonderfully woven into the teachings of the Bible.”  What of other nations?  Are not citizens of every nation created in the image of God?  What kind of God privileges the United States over the rest of the world?  I wonder, what does this say about Americans’ view of the image of God when we publish jingoistic bibles and the majority of us support torturing others for the ‘good of our country?’  Is the Imago dei only valid if one is American?  Is particular only to us?

God is beginning to look more and more like Jack Bauer and Christians more and more like nationalistic Americans than we might care to admit. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m sitting on at least one more post about violence but until I get through the rest of my finals and finish up my papers this week I won’t have much time to work on it.

Instead I want your help with something.  A few days ago Matt Scott announced the topic of discussion for the month of June over at Open Table Theology.  To inaugurate this new experiment in generative conversation we will be discussing the Imago dei.

I’ve already got a few thoughts and a possible direction (or two) that I may take my piece, but I’m gonna cheat a little bit.  I’m wondering what your thoughts are.  What do you think about the idea of Imago dei?  What is the Imago dei?  What does it mean to be created in the Image of God and what are the tangible ramifications of such an assertion?  In other words, given your idea about what the Imago dei is, how does that change or affect your mode of being in the world?

My friend Matt Scott is starting a new blog consortium and emergent collective.  Open Table Theology will be an place to foster diverse theological conversation and hopefully an outlet for voices — important and interesting voices, to be sure — that might not otherwise be heard amidst the noise of social media.

You can read more of Matt’s thoughts on the project here and here.

The idea is to gather together a diverse group of persons who are interested in creating an participating in open theological conversation about a wide variety of topics.  You don’t have to be a blogger to participate.  You should have to be someone who has something to share.

A new theme/topic will be selecting each month beginning in June.  There’s really no limit to contribution at this point.  Submissions will be posted and hopefully a thoughtful and engaging conversation will be sparked and continue for the duration of the month.

So here’s the deal. These sorts of things only work well if people participate.  We need contributors! If you’re interested stop by and sign up and you will receive and email from Matt with instructions.  If you don’t want to be a steady contributor add the Open Table RSS feed to your feed reader so you can join in the conversation once it gets going.  The more people we have involved the richer and more engaging the conversation will be.  So check it out!